2 /5 Alice Gee: Mixed experience. Might have scored higher if it werent for the fact that it was quite pricey for tiny portions, and the bad attitude of the servers when we reported problems, mostly of an organizational nature, with the mains.
My starter of cured sea bream from the raw section of the menu was excellent. Sauce of ponzo diluted with cold tomato consomme was perfectly balanced. I loved the unidentified green leaves that dressed fish. They had a flavour that complimented seafood beautifully. Portion was very modest. My companion was happy with his two little items from the bites section of the menu. Sardine pincho was very fresh and vegetale, and he liked the mushroom and truffle arancini. I tried a bite of both and personally found the arancini stodgy.
There was some confusion because my companion originally wanted a pizzetta as main, despite the waitress warning him that the portion was small. He became wary after seeing the very dainty portion sizes of the starters. An order of vegetarian pasta was added to his order before arrival of the pizzetta, which apparently confused the kitchen regarding delivery sequence for the remaining food.
The pizzetta with taleggio and prosciutto was indeed tiny and served cold. In that respect my companion was happy he had augmented his order with warm pasta. The pizzetta bite I tried tasted mostly of parma ham, so serving cold made sense, but calling it a pizzetta instead of cold ham on toast was misleading.
My main order of the signature burger and creamed spinach both arrived tepid. The spinach was seriously under seasoned and bland. Burger was tasty despite being lukewarm at best. My companions pumpkin and and Vacherin pasta was the worst dish of the night. Cold, overcooked and sickly sweet. I think the flavour profile would have been vastly improved by a sprinkle of fried capers to add a pop of contrast to the sweetness. I sampled a bite and could discern cheesiness but not Vacherin in particular.
When asked about our food we short listed some of our problems with tepid food as well as with the pumpkin pasta. We were surprised that serving staff, instead agreeing to report the problems to the kitchen, got defensive. Our waitress explained that there were lights to keep the dishes warm. We had seen the salamanders positioned way too high on the pass to be effective, given how long our orders waited there. A manager came to explain that pumpkin is indeed sweet so we shouldnt be surprised by sweetness of the vegetarian pasta.
We wont be back. The cheapest bottle of red was incidentally ÂŁ42. Its an elegant room.
